FC Midtjylland began their competitive season with a Danish League opener against Odense on Friday night. They fell to a shock 2-1 defeat after some moments of defensive disaster, which prompted Midtjylland boss Bo Henriksen to warn his players that they are underdogs against Celtic and will get beat by Ange Postecoglou’s men if they don’t improve on their ropey defending.
The Danish runners up head to Glasgow over the weekend, ahead of Tuesday night’s Champions League qualifier, in which 9,000 Celtic supporters will be in attendance. Henriksen is full of the usual European football excitement that many would expect, but is cautious in his approach.
Midtjylland just lost 2-1 (an injury time winner) in their opening league match at home to Odense. Sviatchenko played whole 90 mins.
— Ian 🇵🇸 (@GlasgowBhoy) July 16, 2021
He told the Daily Record: “Against Celtic, we are underdogs, while against Odense we were probably huge favourites. So things have been turned on their head a bit. We are really looking forward to getting over there and playing on a stage like this is what we dream of. I expect us to defend better. We will have to. It’s also going to be important to take whatever chances we get, which is something we didn’t do here.”
Midtjylland keeper Jonas Lossl was slightly more vague in his comments to the same news outlet, remarking: “We need to pick ourselves up, but they are two different games. It’s incredibly important for us to go to Glasgow and return with a good result so we can decide the game at home in Herning. To be honest, I don’t know much about Scottish football, but I am sure we will learn.”
Meanwhile, former Celt Erik Sviatchenko appears to be taking everything in his stride and simply looking forward to returning to Paradise. He said: “Of course it will be an extremely challenging match at Celtic, but we have to be bold and believe we can do it and repeat what we did last season when we got to the group stage. For me personally, it’s going to be special and I’m looking forward to the game and giving it my all.”